Duke drama as stepmum puts £4m pad up for sale
AS THE country’s aristocrats make plans for the summer social season, the 11th Duke of Roxburghe may need to book a room at a Travelodge.
For I hear that Charles InnesKer’s stepmother is selling the family’s London pied-a-terre.
The move by Virginia, the Dowager Duchess of Roxburghe, follows her exit from magnificent Floors Castle, the family’s ancestral seat in Roxburghshire, after the death of her husband Guy, the 10th Duke.
The three-bedroom flat in South Kensington, which was registered in Virginia’s name, has been put on the market for £3.8 million. It was bought for £481,500 in 2007.
‘This will put the cat among the pigeons,’ a friend tells me. ‘Charlie and his family would often use the flat, particularly to do the season.’
Estate agent photographs show that the flat, in a ‘sought-after address’, is tastefully decorated, with framed family photos on display throughout its bedrooms, two reception rooms and three bathrooms.
Once described as Britain’s most eligible bachelor, the Duke, 43, is an Army pal of Prince Harry. Charlie inherited the title, as well as Floors Castle and an estimated £ 100 million estate, when his father died in 2019.
In 2021, the Duke married Annie Green, who gave birth to a son and heir, Freddie, in February. Charlie also has a daughter, Eugenie, seven, with his ex-girlfriend, the Iranian fashion designer Morvarid Sahafi — a friend of Annie’s.
He was previously married to Lord Beaverbrook’s elder daughter, Charlotte Aitken, but they separated just months after their wedding.
However sad Charlie might be at the loss of his London pad, I hope he doesn’t follow the example of his grandfather’s first wife, Mary.
She refused to leave the family estate after her husband, the 9th Duke, had an affair. She locked herself in a suite for six weeks to avoid eviction.